Officials of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) are in Bayelsa to investigate alleged fraudulent procurement practices in constituency and executive projects.

The officials are led by Mr Livinus Idor.

It was learnt that Bayelsa is among 17 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) where the ICPC is tracking the contracts budgeted for in the appropriation laws of 2019, 2020 and 2021.

It was further learnt that the exercise would cover 1,024 constituency and 227 executive projects in agriculture, education, power, health and water resources, among other sectors.

The first phase was done in 2019 in 12 states and the FCT.

It  resulted in the tracking of 524 projects while the second phase in 2020 had about 822 works tracked in 16 states.

The itinerary of the team shows that the exercise would last between eight and 10 days.

The team would visit project sites in the five Federal Constituencies and three Senatorial Districts of Bayelsa Central, East and West.

The commission’s investigators, who arrived Bayelsa on Monday have visited 16 solar-powered borehole water projects executed in some communities in the Yenagoa/Kolokuma/Opokuma Federal Constituency of Bayelsa Central.

The team also tracked security infrastructure project at Federal Government Girls’ College, Imiringi, in the Ogbia Federal Constituency of Bayelsa East, among other contracts.

A source among the commission’s investigators, who wished not to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the project tracking, said the team has reached advanced stages in the job.

“We have over 50 files of projects covering all the sectors that we will track in Bayelsa.

“The essence is that ICPC wants to ensure that contracts awarded and captured in the appropriation laws of 2019, 2020 and 2021 and are carried out according to specifications and quality. Not only that, we want to see how functional they are,” the source said.